Lawfare Podcast Archive: Content Moderation Comes for Parler and Getter

Original Date: September 9, 2021 (rebroadcast January 18, 2026)
Guests:

• Quinta Jurecic (host, Lawfare Institute)
• Evelyn Douek (co-host, researcher)
• David Thiel (Chief Technical Officer, Stanford Internet Observatory)

Episode Overview

This episode of the Lawfare Podcast, part of their "Arbiters of Truth" series, examines the challenges, contradictions, and realities of content moderation on two "alt-tech" social media platforms: Parler and Getter. Quinta Jurecic and Evelyn Douek speak with David Thiel of the Stanford Internet Observatory, whose research team produced in-depth reports on the operation, growth, moderation standards, and core user bases of these right-leaning platforms.

Key themes include what drives the existence of Parler and Getter, how and why their promise of “free speech absolutism” rapidly founders, their disjointed moderation policies, the technical and ethical landmines they encounter, and what their bumpy trajectories reveal about the broader information ecosystem.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The "Alt-Tech" Label: Who and What Are Parler and Getter?

• Parler and Getter are alternative social media platforms that arose in response to so-called "censorship" by mainstream platforms (Facebook, Twitter) and cater largely to right-leaning, sometimes deplatformed, communities.
• Evelyn Douek (05:02):

  “Alt just means it's the only alternative network that will accept the, you know, people with those types of online behaviors.”

2. Origins, User Bases, and Growth Trajectories

• Parler:
  • Notoriously used by Capitol rioters on January 6, 2021; after its “moment in the sun,” its user base declined and shifted to mainly right-wing news syndication and commentary.
  • Experienced waves of user migration—Americans, Brazilians, and Saudi Arabic speakers—after high-profile deplatformings elsewhere.
• Getter:
  • Newer, launched by a team linked to Miles Guo and Steve Bannon, aiming for a similar user base.
  • Attracted large initial signups thanks to high-profile backers, but growth rapidly tapered.
  • Has a distinctive “Guo sphere” influence, more directly tied to anti-China conspiratorial content.
• David Thiel (07:06):

  "Getter...launched with a splash all at once...the growth is getting slower and slower. In terms of size, it's maybe a tenth of the size of Parler."

3. Content, Community Standards, and Hypocrisy

• Both platforms claim to be “free speech havens,” yet immediately carve out vague exceptions (“otherwise objectionable”) and retain broad moderation discretion.
• David Thiel (10:02):

  “Getter’s content policy...includes the words, ‘Getter holds freedom of speech as its core value and does not wish to censor your opinions. Nonetheless, you may not post any harmful, vulgar, profane, hateful or otherwise objectionable material.’”

• These platforms “speedrun” the content moderation evolution of major platforms: from no moderation to reactive panic as harmful/illegal material arrives.

4. Demographics and International Connection: The Brazil Factor

• Both platforms have significant user bases in Brazil. Brazilian political leaders, including Bolsonaro and his sons, actively encouraged migration due to deplatforming issues or affinities with U.S. right-wing movements.
• Evelyn Douek (16:08):

  “Bolsonaro and his sons advertise...and have pushed it pretty heavily. So it's a large enough demographic that Getter itself turned itself green and yellow yesterday to celebrate their Independence Day.”

5. Functional Problems and Lack of Engagement

• Despite political capital, both Parler and Getter remain small compared to Facebook or Twitter. They suffer from technological issues, spam, and lack actual debate—a core appeal of mainstream platforms.
• Evelyn Douek (18:34):

  “There's not that much to do...Really all that happens is somebody posts, usually a news story, a bunch of people chime in and say, yeah, and everyone mostly agrees with each other...It isn't really the most interesting or engaging way to spend your time.”

6. Dependence on Mainstream Platforms

• Both platforms rely on content and syndication from mainstream platforms—importing posts, automatically cross-posting, and republishing influencer content with minimal interaction.
• Evelyn Douek (25:28):

  “A lot of these things don't really have any direct interaction from the high-profile people posting there. It's really they're just kind of feeding off of these external sources.”

7. Transparency and Technical Shortcomings

• Open, often poorly secured APIs made both platforms unusually transparent to researchers—to the point of leaking too much.
• Lack of technical experience with scale, threat models, privacy, and abuse prevention became evident.

8. Content Moderation: Failing the Basics

• Both Parler and Getter ran into immediate problems with spam and explicit material, lacking even basic content filtering tools.
• Evelyn Douek (30:49):

  “The lack of preparation just means they didn’t really quite understand what they were getting into.”

8.1 Serious Failures: Child Sexual Abuse Material on Getter

• The platform did not implement PhotoDNA or similar industry-standard protections; researchers found and reported instances to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
• Evelyn Douek (39:35):

  “When it comes to child safety, [PhotoDNA] is the basic thing that you’re going to have to implement if you don’t want that material to proliferate on your platform... Getter claims that every time an image of any child is uploaded, they have people manually examine it, which is just a completely bizarre claim.”

9. Legal and Platform Pressures—Deplatforming From “The Stack”

• Tech infrastructure providers (Amazon Web Services, cloud comms provider Twilio, Apple/Google app stores) exerted real pressure for content moderation compliance.
• Evelyn Douek (50:11):

  “It's not just a matter of whether they can be up or down. It's kind of that larger ecosystem—parts of it can just kind of fall out at any time, and they have to pivot to find a new way to function.”

10. Pragmatic Moderation and Abandonment of Free Speech Absolutism

• Both platforms rapidly shifted from bold declarations of absolutist free speech to ad-hoc, inconsistent moderation—sometimes to placate service providers, sometimes to try to manage user experience, or merely in reaction to controversy.
• Evelyn Douek (53:19):

  “They're not sticking to this kind of constitutional idea of free speech...They're just kind of fuzzy and trying things until they find what works.”

10.1 "Speedrunning" the Content Moderation Lifecycle

• As Mike Masnick noted, these new sites are retracing the mistakes and lessons learned by Facebook, Twitter et al.—but faster.
• Evelyn Douek (54:33):

  “They're going through the phases of, ‘We don't need to moderate anything’ to, ‘Oh, actually there's some bad stuff we don't want,’ to ‘It's actually really hard to figure out what we do want and what we don't want.’”

11. Why Can't Parler and Getter "Get It Right"—Even With Resources?

• Despite substantial funding (Mercer family, Peter Thiel, Bannon affiliates), platforms lack deep technical teams, trust and safety staff, and the technical/institutional memory big platforms gained over years. Much of this simply cannot be "solved by throwing money."
• Evelyn Douek (58:48):

  “I just don't think that they anticipated what it would mean to get those people, where you would be able to get them, what technologies would be involved...It's also just not something that necessarily you can solve by throwing money at the problem.”

12. Broader Implications: Fragmentation, the Future of Moderation, and Platform "Fatigue"

• The alternative tech space sees ongoing platform churn and user migration, but little stickiness or real community formation.
• The next frontier may be in group- or chat-oriented tools—posing new content moderation problems.
• Evelyn Douek (63:00):

  “I think that the next moves in this kind of catering to the right wing or deplatform populations is not going to be so much in the Twitter clone space. It's going to be more...communication or group oriented.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Platform Dependence and Irony:
  Quinta Jurecic (24:21):

  “The whole appeal...is that they are an alternative to mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook that are censoring you...and yet, as you say, they're relying a fair amount on those platforms for growth and content...”

• On Fundamental Challenges:
  David Thiel (44:42):

  “That's a pretty sick burn to say they don't really understand how their website works. But then I was thinking about it and I'm not sure that Facebook or Twitter or any of these platforms really understand how their website works once you really think about it.”

• On Content Moderation as Infrastructure:
  David Thiel (60:58):

  “Content moderation really needs to be considered part of the infrastructure of a platform rather than an afterthought.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [05:02]—Defining “alt” platforms and their user bases
• [07:06]—Origin stories of Getter (Miles Guo, Bannon connections)
• [12:45]—Demographics and emoji analysis of users (including Brazil, Saudi Arabia)
• [16:08]—The significance of the Brazilian user base and Bolsonaro
• [18:34]—Why Parler and Getter are failing to scale
• [24:21]—Layered dependency on mainstream platforms
• [27:21]—Openness and researcher access to data
• [30:49]—Spam as a test of any platform’s moderation capability
• [39:35]—Egregious lack of child safety protections on Getter
• [46:58]—Parler’s pre-Jan 6th (inadequate) moderation referrals to FBI
• [48:44]—Stack deplatforming: AWS, app stores, etc.
• [53:19]—Real moderation philosophy versus initial absolutism
• [54:33]—“Speedrunning” moderation history
• [58:48]—Limits of money and early-stage platform struggles
• [60:58]—Necessity of integrating moderation from the outset
• [63:00]—Speculation on the next alt-platform trends

Conclusion

This episode pulls back the curtain on the myth and reality of “alt-tech” platforms. The promise of a “censorship-free” digital haven tumbles quickly into the same hard choices, resource shortfalls, and structural contradictions faced by their mainstream rivals—often with far less preparation and technical skill. For all their political and media resonance, platforms like Parler and Getter must grapple with—and often fail—at the hard, unglamorous work of content moderation and user safety. Their struggles are instructive for the entire social media landscape.